The visit was part of NYC Green Schools’ official launch of our Meatless Monday campaign, in partnership with the national non-profit Meatless Monday. Our objective is to bring more plant-based foods into city schools to improve our children’s health and the health of our planet.

When preparing our talk, we decided not to downplay the horrifying statistics facing today’s youth. Instead, we decided that the students have a right to know more than anyone the toll our food system was taking on their health. When we told them the staggering prediction that young people today will be the first generation of Americans to live shorter lives than their parents as a direct result of the food they eat, they became extremely attentive. The school’s PTA president, who happens to be a nurse, brought home our statistics when she described her work in an intensive care unit. Five years ago, she said, the vast majority of patients in the ICU were elderly people approaching the end of their lives. In recent years, though, more and more people in their 30s and 40s show up in the ICU with complications from diabetes and hypertension as a direct result of being obese, she said.

The students did not become defensive when hearing the news or when we proposed that they try to reduce their consumption of saturated fat by eating only plant-based meals on Monday. No one asked, “But what about my meat?” On the contrary, they were eager to give healthy, cholesterol-free foods, like vegetarian chili and pasta with tomato sauce and garbanzo beans, a try. They understood what was at stake.

One student in fact had seen the film “Food Inc.” and, as a result of what she had learned about our food system, was trying to become a vegetarian. She told us that when her mom served her hamburger and French fries the night before for dinner, she only ate the fries. Granted, when we asked the students what their favorite school meals were, we heard the refrain you will hear in most city schools: the chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, pizza! And, unfortunately, since consumer demand is what drives the “business of school food” — not serving America’s undernourished children the most nutritious meals possible — those popular food items are likely to stay on the menu for a long time to come.

In which case, maybe education is the answer to the health crisis we face. We had just 15 minutes to share with students from Validus information about the food they were eating and how it was affecting their health.And yet, in that short time, we had students motivated to do something about it. Imagine what an entire curriculum dedicated to a detailed examination of our food system and its toll on our health and planet might do. A 15-minute presentation by a startup organization should not be the first time New York City high school students learn about the grim statistics facing their generation.  Students need to learn about what’s happening to their bodies and why from their earliest years in elementary school, so that they can develop good eating habits and avoid a lifetime of disease and quite possibly premature death.

Perhaps if our schools were a little less focused on test scores and more focused on subjects that are quite literally a matter of life and death to our students, we would have been spared the story we heard later in the day from a science teacher in Queens who told us about an eighth-grader at her school who had to be rushed to the hospital because of complications due to diabetes.

Last year Jennifer Freeman, an environmental writer whose child attended PS 166, invited schools in District 3 to share ideas and information about going green. Her initiative gave rise to “D3 Green Schools,” a group that meets monthly to discuss how to make the district’s schools more sustainable. As Jennifer explains, “Everything the D3 Green Schools did last year was low-cost, with minimal time required from school staffs. We hope all schools will soon have recycling programs, cut their energy use, and find other ways to build green communities.”

Before highlighting the many accomplishments of D3 Green Schools, we’d like to clarify what schools are supposed to be doing to reduce their waste. Chancellor’s Regulation A-850 requires principals to appoint a “sustainability coordinator” at their schools from their administrative or teaching staffs. The principal and sustainability coordinator are responsible for creating and implementing a recycling and waste reduction plan for their school. This year, principals must submit their recycling plans to the Department of Education by Nov. 12.

If your school doesn’t have clearly labeled recycling bins in every classroom, office, and in the cafeteria, it may be time to form a Green Committee at your school comprised of parents, teachers and students to make sure recycling actually gets implemented and that the entire school community is on board. The Department of Sanitation has created videos for students that you can screen to help people at your school understand the importance of recycling. You can also order free decals and educational materials from the city to make sure bins are clearly labeled and that students and teachers understand what they’re supposed to be recycling and how.

Many of the recycling initiatives undertaken by D3 Green Schools go beyond the classroom to include the wider school community. As you will see, recycling can be a great fundraising opportunity for your school as well as a way to give back to your community. If you’d like to be part of D3 Green Schools (and your school doesn’t have to be in District 3 to participate), start by joining its Yahoo group.

Here’s what some District 3 schools have already done to promote recycling:

• PS 334 has established a strong recycling collection program that includes collecting mixed paper and metal/glass/plastic beverage containers in classrooms and offices, metal cans and corrugated cardboard boxes in the kitchen, and metal/glass/plastic beverage containers and foil in the cafeteria, with the potential to recycle more than 700 milk cartons a day. The cafeteria has a bucket into which students pour their extra milk and then recycle the containers. Students trained as “Trash Troopers” help to police the recycling bins in their classrooms and the cafeteria, and they also help teach students how and what to recycle.
• PS 199 made “Reduce & Reuse” its focus last year, with the goal of keeping as much waste as possible out of landfills. PS 199 collected unwanted small electronics, like old cell phones, calculators, and digital cameras, and mailed them to “Cartridges for Kids” for cash. Cartridges for Kids is a recycling program that pays schools and non-profits for cell phones, inkjet cartridges, laptops, iPods, digital cameras, video games and DVDs. Young students helped count and graph the donated items as they came in. PS 199 also organized a Halloween costume swap. They collected 128 pairs of old eyeglasses for New Eyes for the Needy, books for Project Cicero, clothes and other items for Haitian children, sneakers for Nike’s Re-Use-a-Shoe program, bottle caps for Aveda (sorted by kindergarteners as part of their math curriculum), and textiles for Wearable Collections. PS 199 also implemented a recycling program in their cafeteria. As part of a school project, kids made a film to the soundtrack of “Man in the Mirror,” with children offering ideas on how to help the planet followed by a demonstration of their new cafeteria recycling program.
• PS 87 runs a cell phone, printer cartridge, and battery recycling program. PS 87 also hosts an annual clothing and textile recycling drive in partnership with Wearable Collections. Throughout the year, PS 87 hosts used book and rummage sales, which support reuse, raise a little money, and reduce landfill. PS 87 hosts an annual Eco 87 Day, an interactive fair that educates and inspires students and families with hands-on games, activities, arts, and crafts.
• PS 163 has a recycling program where students separate their lunch trash into large, clearly marked bins in their cafeteria. Classroom jobs empower students to bring used materials to designated recycling areas. Parents are encouraged to assist in waste reduction by packing their children’s lunch with recyclable materials. PS 163 held a workshop for parents at which children, parents, and professionals introduced green ideas and showed how the school was tackling them.

Schools such as PS 333 (The Manhattan School for Children) want to change that by starting composting programs to teach their students that food waste does not have to end up in a landfill. Instead, the schools are teaching, food waste can be used to create rich black soil that will nourish plants students can eat in the future. Students learn the invaluable lesson of decay, regrowth, and the cycles of life.

The voluntary composting program the Manhattan School for Children is initiating could one day be mandatory, not just for our schools but our entire city. That’s because composting is an environmentally superior alternative to landfilling organics that eliminates methane production and substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, ton for ton, composting reduces greenhouse gas emissions from organics management over any other management option. Citywide composting is already in place in cities like Seattle and Berkeley, Calif.

The Manhattan School for Children, a K-8 school with both a Wellness Committee and a Green Team, has made sustainability issues a top priority. This fall the school will be completing an ambitious greenhouse project with a scheduled opening for Nov. 5. The greenhouse will serve as a science-based learning lab and will play a key role in the school’s composting program, which came about in large part to two of the school’s parents, Manuela Zamora and Sidsel Robards.

We spoke with Melanie Sherman, a parent at the school and nutritionist who has helped to spearhead many of PS 333′s “green” initiatives. She explained to us that the school has composting bins in every classroom, where the students compost paper, fruit, vegetables, egg shells, tea leaves and coffee grinds. Their compost bins are homemade using wriggler worms and paper.

Melanie told us:

You can buy finished bins at the Lower East Side Ecology Center for $55 each. We chose to build our own and ended up spending less —  about $15 for a large plastic bin. The custodians at the school helped drill holes along the top of the bins for air vents. Each bin needs a pound of worms, which are around $22 per pound. We bought worms from several places — the ones from The Lower East Side Ecology Center were great.

The Lower East Side Ecology Center played an important role in helping PS 333 set up its composting system. The center conducted a workshop with the teachers where they handed out informational flyers as well as offered an emergency hotline for anyone with questions. There were also books that the teachers and parents used to educate themselves and the students. The most popular were “Worms Eat Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment” and “Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System.” A parent at the school got a grant from Lowe’s that covered the costs of the bins and worms as part of the Greenhouse Project.

The school’s Green Team also recruited older kids as “ambassadors” to teach the younger students the values and “how to’s” of composting. Involving older students as educators is an excellent way of letting the students know that the composting system is their accomplishment — and their responsibility to feed and maintain.

Melanie did admit to us that one classroom had “a big problem” with fruit flies, but she assured us that fruit flies can be avoided by microwaving the fruit waste before adding it to the bin (a great tip). Even so, some classrooms chose not to put fruit in their bins.  Fruit or no fruit, the compost collected from the classes will go to the school’s newly constructed greenhouse as well as to the local greenmarket.

When we asked Melanie what advice she had for parents wanting to start a composting system at their school, we couldn’t help but notice her own childlike enthusiasm:

Keep at it — it is definitely a learning curve both for the teachers and kids, but I think it is a great teaching tool. We have several families who now compost in their NYC apartments. One pound of worms in a bin can eat up to 3 pounds of waste in a week — if you are going out of town, you can throw in an apple and the New York Times and they will be fine for a week.

The Manhattan School for Children plans to launch a website later this year with ideas and events for people interested in composting. The school’s goal is to become a model school for a “Green, Clean, Sustainable and Healthy” environment for New York City’s children. We look forward to keeping you posted on their future accomplishments.

The disparity is in some ways a product of increased attention to food quality in schools, from Jamie Oliver’s Emmy-Award-winning reality show “Food Revolution” to First Lady Michele Obama’s calls for better school food to combat childhood obesity. You’d think that in such a climate, with a mayor committed to public health issues, we’d start to see some genuine improvements to the food in city’s public schools. Unfortunately, in many ways we’re seeing just the opposite.

A $24 million budget cut to the Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood is not only limiting meal choices at lunch time and decreasing the hours of kitchen staff, but also reducing the number of schools participating in the Universal Free Meals Program. The new school year started with nearly 100 fewer city schools taking part in the program, which provides free breakfast and lunch to all students in predominantly low-income schools regardless of their income, residency, or citizenship status. Poor students in the schools are still eligible for free lunch, but filling out the forms to qualify for free or reduced lunch is a barrier to many families. In addition, the universal meals program eliminates the stigma of being a reduced or free lunch student, thereby increasing the likelihood of children participating in the program. Schools that provide universal breakfast in the classroom report increases in student attentiveness and attendance and generally improved learning environments. As City Councilman Robert Jackson, chair of the Education Committee, said, “Balancing the budget on the bellies of hungry students is just plain cruel.”

Budget cuts will also limit the number of hot meals served at lunch from two to one for elementary schools and from three to two for middle and high schools. This may not seem like such a dramatic setback, but with SchoolFood’s practice of serving children what they like in an effort to boost sales, a 6-year-old could be served chicken nuggets one day, mozzarella sticks the next, followed by hamburger and fries, and pizza on Fridays. Cutting back the hours of kitchen staff will also greatly limit the possibility of actually getting fresh local produce into the schools, since there won’t be the staff to prepare and cook it.

SchoolFood has adopted the strategy of accommodating parents and educators who demand healthier food for their students while failing to implement policies that ensure more nutritious meals for all the city’s children. As a result, a very inequitable situation is developing in our school cafeterias where some schools, for example, have salad bars offering fresh vegetables on a daily basis, while other schools get to have ketchup count as one of the required vegetable servings for the day.

So in the end, what has all the public attention on school food reform gotten for the vast majority of New York City’s children? Less access to free and reduced meals, fewer meal choices, and less likelihood of having meals prepared with fresh ingredients. Farm-to-table pilot programs that serve a handful of schools may provide great photo opportunities for our government officials, but they have yet to make a difference for the vast majority of the city’s students. It’s time for DOE officials to sit down with parents and school food activists to discuss what can be done in this time of economic austerity to provide healthier meals for all the city’s children. The improvements in school food enjoyed at certain schools can serve as an example of what can and should be done in all the city’s schools to eliminate the growing disparity among our school cafeterias.

NYC Green Schools has proposed that New York City schools also get rid of chocolate milk as the daily consumption of sweetened drinks has no place in a child’s diet. Here’s the truth about the chocolate milk served daily to New York City’s schoolchildren: It contains 22 grams of sugar, which is more sugar than half a can of coke, and it is sweetened with high-fructose corn-syrup, which is listed as the second ingredient.

With 40 percent of city children either overweight or obese, why does the Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood still insist on chocolate milk? The question is especially vexing because the city decided recently to eliminate sugary drinks from school vending machines, citing irrefutable evidence linking the increased consumption of sugary drinks with the rising rates of childhood obesity.

One SchoolFood official told us that the SchoolFood office is “in the business of food” and that chocolate milk sells. We can only assume this is the same rationale of the dairy industry for continuing to produce chocolate milk. Milk sold in schools makes up 7 percent of all milk sales in the country, and flavored milk constitutes 71 percent of the milk served in our nation’s schools. Neither the city nor the industry wants to risk losing “business” by serving only plain white milk, even though this is clearly the healthier option for our children.

The high-fructose corn syrup in the chocolate milk also poses a health risk to students.  The Washington Post reported last year that new studies had found that “almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient.” In a prepared statement, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies, said, “Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered.”

In The Nutrition Deficit Disorder Book, renowned pediatrician William Sears explains that because high-fructose corn syrup does not occur in nature, the body might not know how to process it. Some researchers have expressed concern that the extra fructose in HFCS might be metabolized in the liver, causing damage there. Because the research is mixed, Dr. Sears, like many doctors, advises erring on the side of caution and eliminating high-fructose corn syrup from children’s diets.

As parents, we consider chocolate milk a treat, not a beverage our children should be drinking every day. We also believe that if only plain white milk and water were served in school, children would drink one or the other with their lunch. The daily consumption of sweetened drinks, whether in the form of soda or flavored milk, is harmful to our children’s health. It’s time for the city’s Office of SchoolFood to put our children’s health before “business.” No more excuses. If the District of Columbia can do it, so can New York.

Dennis Kitchen

Founded and directed by Dennis Kitchen, Getting Tools to City Schools sells eco-friendly 3-ring binders as a way to fund its charitable mission of providing free, basic school supplies to students in New York City’s low-income public schools. About two-thirds of the students enrolled in the city’s elementary and middle schools can’t afford lunch, much less basic school supplies. In fact, city teachers spend hundreds and even thousands of their own dollars each year to buy basic supplies for their students. So Dennis decided to start a charitable organization that would give these students the necessary supplies they need to perform well in school: a brand new three-ring binder, lined paper, pencil, pens, pocket divider folders and a pencil pouch.

As a way to fund the needed school supplies, Getting Tools to City Schools started selling eco-friendly 3-ring binders. The binders are made of 100 percent recycled paperboard, which is FDA-approved and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)-certified. The binders are reusable, which makes them economical. They feature an ingenious removable 3-ring binder mechanism: All you have to do is disattach the rings, recycle the tattered and doodled-upon binder cover, and attach a new cover ready for artistic expression. No more wasteful vinyl binders filling up our landfills. Forty million vinyl binders are sold in the United States each year, accounting for 35 million pounds of landfill. Each year there are 8,000 landfill fires, and the PVC burning in these fires may now be the single largest source of dioxin releases in the environment.

Getting Tools to City Schools, which is an approved vendor of the Department of Education, has already received orders from three public schools that are outfitting their entire schools (students, staff & administration) with the company’s recyclable, reusable binders for the fall. The company offers a discount to schools, parent groups, businesses, and organizations that order more than 50 binders.

Plus, any New York City public schools that has more than 90 percent of students eligible for free lunches can get the organization’s services. With every reusable, recyclable binder purchased at full price, Getting Tools to City Schools will give a binder to a student at a low-income public school. Getting Tools to City Schools makes it easy to be part of a helping our city’s children perform well at school — all you have to do is purchase a recyclable binder that won’t add to our landfills. (Orders made by Aug. 1 will arrive before the school year starts.)

Here’s a video Getting Tools to City Schools produced about its very first supplies delivery, to PS 335 in the South Bronx:

Since our bake-in rally protesting the regulation in March, NYC Green Schools has been on the ground advocating for a repeal of the ban on the sale of home-cooked food in our schools at meetings of PTA presidents councils, community boards, and community education councils. We are happy to report that a resolution urging the Department of Education to repeal the ban  has been passed by several community boards in Manhattan and will be voted on by all Manhattan community boards at their Borough Board Meeting in July. Community Board 6 in Brooklyn has also passed a resolution asking the city to repeal the ban, and we are working on having the resolution introduced at Brooklyn’s borough meeting as well.

What is the role of community boards in the political process? That was our question when Community Board 2 in Manhattan invited us to speak about Regulation A-812. While the Department of Education can willfully ignore resolutions passed by community boards, our elected officials cannot. Resolutions passed by community boards signal to our city council members and borough board presidents that there’s broad support for a change, prompting our elected officials to then put pressure on our mayor and chancellor to honor, or at the very least acknowledge, the will of the people. In short, New York City community boards are a vital part of the democratic process ensuring that our city government is run by and for the people.

NYC Green Schools is continuing to build our coalition of parents, educators, community boards and community education councils, because we’ve learned that the only way we’re going to genuinely improve the quality of the food and, for that matter, education in our public schools is by coming together as parents, educators and citizens and demanding change. Before  Regulation A-812, this idea of building, dare we say it, a people’s movement would have seemed too abstract and daunting to us. But over these last few months we’ve come to understand these words by the great historian and activist Howard Zinn: “And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

The inspiration to grow an edible school garden originates with the children, of course, and the desire to see them learn firsthand about where food comes from and to literally enjoy the fruits — and veggies — of their labor. As soon as you have funding and your garden is a go, you will want to find ways to bring the children and teachers of your school into the process. What the garden committee at PS 107 did first to capture the children’s imagination was hold a garden-naming contest. Out of 140 entries the name “The Sunshine Garden”, submitted by a first grader, was selected. Having a naming contest gave the students a sense of ownership; it signaled to them that the garden was theirs to learn from and enjoy.

PS 107′s science teacher was instrumental in ensuring that the children were involved in the planting of the garden and that the garden became integrated into the curriculum. “We believe that the parents should provide foundational support and continued resources,” Michelle says. “But to really make the garden part of the school, it should be in the teachers’ hands.” This past year Michele decided to approach other teachers at her school about gardening and was able to recruit 12 more in different capacities. As Michele explains, “When I say different capacities, I mean that some just did hydroponic gardening in the classroom using AeroGrow Gardens, others started seeds in the classroom using grow lights. …  And several used the garden to address a mandated inquiry project they had to do.” The point is gardening doesn’t just have to take place outside, it can happen in the classroom as well.

Be prepared that with students planting, the garden is probably going to have a haphazard quality. “Let the garden be messy,” Michelle advises. “With students, especially young ones, things might get a bit disorganized — too many seeds in one place, things kind of strewn here and there. … For me, that’s OK. … Things can be thinned, replanted, replaced. … Nature truly does take its course.”

As students get their hands dirty in the garden, they learn about plants, the natural environment (from weather to water to soil), and healthy eating. This year students at PS 107 will use their garden to examine environmental conditions that have an impact on gardening. Steve Tomsik, PS 107′s science teacher, explains, “I see the garden not only as an extension of my classroom, where lab work and scientific inquiry can take place, but also as a novel and engaging place where students can explore.” Here’s a sampling of some of the fruits and vegetables PS 107 grew in 2009: peas, spinach, corn, raspberries, gooseberries, lettuce, kale, leeks, arugula, beans, sweet peppers, eggplant, sunflowers, chives, three types of basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, tomatoes, onions, carrots, and heirloom potatoes. And remember theirs is a shady garden!

You may be wondering what to do with all this fresh, healthy food once you’ve grown it. Many NYC schools with edible gardens participate in the Garden to School Café pilot program of the city Department of Education’s SchoolFood and the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets. Participating schools have a “Harvest Day,” when the fresh food grown in their gardens is used to prepare dishes that the students can sample. The Earth School in the East Village recently had their Harvest Day. Their menu included roasted potatoes with rosemary, sautéed spinach with garlic, and pasta with fresh basil pesto. These dishes were served that day as part of the school lunch in the cafeteria as well. PS 107′s Harvest Day included roasted basil chicken, herbed rice, and kale slaw, all prepared with the fresh vegetables grown in their garden.

The Garden to School Café program shows students, parents and teachers that meals prepared with fresh ingredients are possible for school lunch. At The Earth School in the East Village, students loved the food that was prepared. “The potatoes are amazing!” “The spinach is so good!” At PS 107, students were heard saying at their Harvest Day, “This is the best food I ever ate!”  “Do you know why the pesto was so good? Because we grew it!” According to parents, kids whose favorite vegetable was french fries are now requesting kale and pesto for dinner.

As we said at the beginning of this series, starting an edible garden at your school is going to take planning, diplomatic skills, research, creativity, resourcefulness, and stamina. As you consider whether to grow an edible garden at your school, we’d like to leave you with these words from Cynthia Holton, PS 107′s principal:

I view the garden as an important part of the school’s progressive curriculum, in which experiential and collaborative learning are key components. What better way to immerse students in science, as well as in environmental and nutrition education? Our fruit and vegetable garden serves as an outdoor learning lab where students delve into the life and physical sciences and agricultural literacy. They work together to plant and make gardening decisions. They become environmental stewards who grow their appreciation of the natural world. All of this makes for an excellent education.

Working on PS 107's school garden

Michele’s first recommendation is to “start small,” with maybe just a couple of beds to see how much work is involved and how enthusiastically the garden is received by the school community. Michele estimates it will take anywhere from six months to a year to research the materials you will need for your garden and find capital. In the case of PS 107, members of their volunteer garden committee were assigned different tasks, such as fundraising, grant research, community outreach, and vendor solicitation. Keep in mind that your start-up costs will be where you spend most of your money as they will include lumber for the beds, soil, seeds and tools. Once you have those materials, the costs for your garden dramatically decrease (unless you decide to expand the garden, which should be part of your consideration when putting together a budget).

The start-up costs for PS 107′s garden were approximately $4,000 and included recycled plastic lumber for their beds, which is significantly more expensive than untreated lumber. If you start small, your costs will probably be closer to $2,000, according to Michele. Helpful sites to check out regarding start-up costs are GreenThumb, Ecoliteracy, School Garden Wizard, and California School Garden Network. Some PTA boards might be willing to contribute funds to the garden, but Michele was determined to keep the garden committee of her school autonomous from the PTA, and so they raised the money themselves.

The first step Michele recommends is registering your garden with GreenThumb, which holds annual seed and plant giveaways; will provide compost if you attend one of its composting workshops; and also offers workshops where you can receive resource guides, pamphlets, and other useful handouts. Other organizations you’ll want to look into are the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s GreenBridge Community Garden Alliance, Bronx Green Up of the New York Botanical Garden, Green Guerillas, and GrowNYC.

Michele has also spent and continues to spend long stretches of time at her computer visiting gardening websites and signing up for gardening newsletters to price materials, find great deals and get general tips. All her research has led her to discover that you never need to buy seeds. As Michele says, “Get them donated. Most garden centers unload their seeds in the summer.” And you don’t need to worry about the expiration dates either: As Michele explained, “Seeds last quite a while, especially if kept in a cool dry place.” A source for seeds she recommends is the America the Beautiful Fund.

It became obvious from our conversation with Michele that researching and writing grants make up an enormous amount of the “school garden experience.” Although we can’t spare you the ordeal of writing a grant (maybe someone on your PTA or a grant writer at your school can), we can save you time with the research. Michele has been generous enough to share with NYC Green Schools a list she has compiled about possible funding sources for school gardens, which you can read here. The list includes garden, environmental, nutrition, and science grants that are available as well as grant search websites.

In addition to grants, PS 107 also received discounts on materials from local community vendors. A local lumber company greatly discounted the recycled plastic lumber they used for their planters. Michele says, “The trick is reaching out, making a good pitch, expressing need if there is one and telling vendors where they will be acknowledged (website, parent e-mail, newsletter, etc.).” In her opinion, most places will help out. And she adds, “Always write a thank-you note on letterhead!” Michele also solicited online for donations of gardening supplies and received donations from parents at the school as well. She attributes much of their garden committee’s fundraising success to the website they created. Michele says, “The website is a very useful tool for fundraising, publicity, acknowledging donors, volunteers. … It is my prime marketing tool.” A website can inspire people to donate money, time, and/or supplies; it’s also very helpful to have when you have to submit your progress report to your grantmaker.

If you’d love to have an edible garden at your school, but your school lacks the space or you don’t have the time to research and write grants, a couple of NYC Green School parents wrote to us about an organization called Wooly Pockets. For $1,000, Wooly Pockets offers a vertical wall system that includes 50 pockets, plant and vegetable seeds, organic soil and a curriculum. And if your school doesn’t have $1,000 for such a project, Wooly Pockets will fundraise for you. All you have to do is put your school’s name on the list! Now there really is no excuse for not having an edible garden at your school.

The garden at PS 107

Recently we spoke with Michele Israel, a parent at PS 107 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to find out how she started a garden at her school. We won’t lie to you: The process takes planning, diplomatic skills, research, creativity, resourcefulness and — did we mention this already? — stamina. But if you’re willing to dive in and spearhead a garden at your school, you could be rewarded with the sight of your child joyfully eating the lettuce, peas, and purple basil she herself planted in the school’s courtyard while learning firsthand about growing fresh food and healthy eating.

Because there are so many facets to getting a school garden started, we’ve decided to break down the process into three phases: development/planning, materials/financing, and planting/harvesting. Today we’ll look at the development/planning stage.  Over the next two weeks we’ll cover the other phases.

There can be no garden at your school unless you win people’s support, particularly that of your principal, custodial engineer, PTA board, and teachers. So, before wasting any time researching and planning for a garden, go to your principal and see if she’s receptive to the idea. At PS 107, the principal was on board, but she decided that the garden would go in the school’s courtyard, which did not get optimal sunlight. “Since the principal supported the garden, we figured out how to work with the space,” Michelle said.  In fact, Michele has identified being “a problem solver” as a key characteristic of being a school gardener, since you will run into many unanticipated obstacles, such as getting a space with little to no sunlight.

Once a space had been designated, a small planning team was formed that consisted of three parents and garden designer Bryan Quinn of One Nature Design. Members of the planning team visited a few gardens at other schools to get ideas and then had experienced people take a look at PS 107′s space to let them know what was possible. These people included the then-manager of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s GreenBridge and the executive director of GrowNYC, who happened to be a PS 107 parent at the time. Another person you might want to consider getting feedback from is an experienced gardener from a local community garden.

Another view of the garden at PS 107

Working for the school on a pro-bono basis, Quinn then created several designs of what the garden might look like. (His work also included a shade study and recommendations for plants.) Before presenting the agreed-upon design to her principal, Michele first showed it to the school’s custodial engineer to find out whether the proposed design interfered with any fire exits or construction mandates. Input from your custodial engineer is critical, since they will know about building regulations, possible sources of water, where to store tools, etc. Once the design received their custodial engineer’s approval, members of the planning committee then presented the design, along with their PTA president, to PS 107′s principal and assistant principal. “The design really helped propel the project,” Michelle said, because helping the principal and assistant principal visualize the garden got them excited about it and convinced them to move ahead.

Accommodating your school administration’s needs and desires will be critical to your garden’s success, as will be your ability to assure them that the garden will not result in any extra work for them. You need to make it clear that you, the parents, will be doing all the dirty work (although in the case of PS 107, the science teacher got involved as well as the children) and that you will be consulting with your principal and custodian regarding each step of the plan. As Michele said, “The garden is not for the parents. It’s for the entire school and the school administrators have the final say … For example, to get access to the school on the weekend, when we did the construction, we needed a permit.” And the only way Michele could get that, as well a key to the courtyard, was through PS 107′s custodial engineer. 

With time, as it became clear that the parents at PS 107 would be taking care of the school garden themselves, everyone became more amenable. The custodial engineer even took a trip to Home Depot to buy a hose with a gift card that the garden committee had won as part of a grant. As Michele says, “A school garden is about developing relationships. … I believe in working as a team and working within the parameters that we have.” In fact, the school administrators are now among the garden’s biggest fans, enthusiastic about ways the garden can grow and be incorporated into the curriculum.

Once you have a plan and the support of your principal, PTA board and custodial engineer, it’s time to form a volunteer gardening committee. In the case of PS 107, they were able to assemble 20 active and committed members including Bryan Quinn of One Nature Design, their science teacher, a local carpenter (a must for the construction of the all-important planters), and parents. The first task of the committee was devising a budget for the garden and securing funds. Next week we will have information about gardening grants, how to secure free tools and seeds, and what materials to consider for your garden.

In just four weeks (Jan. 15-Feb. 12, at peak winter energy use), PS 166 reduced its energy consumption by 17.75 percent.  ”The school saved $1,845 on its electricity bill (15,380 kilowatt hours) and prevented 20,609 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being released into the environment,” according to Ozgem Omektekin, the Department of Education’s director of sustainability. Katy Perry, the competition’s program director, used a carbon calculator to assess PS 166′s impact, and she found that PS 166′s energy saving was equal to taking two cars off the road for one year, planting 10 trees or replacing 374 incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. And the school accomplished all this in just four weeks!

What extreme measures did PS 166 take to win? As it turns out, none. They posted signs reminding everyone to turn off unnecessary lights, to set thermostats to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, to power down computers, and to close windows and doors. Custodial staff turned off heat and boilers at night.

Although no extreme measures were taken, a little vigilance and visual incentives were required. A Green Team composed of parents, science teachers, and fifth-grade “Climate Captains” walked through the school every Wednesday to make sure community members were doing their part. Parents and teachers received weekly communiqués about the school’s progress. And a large 3-D “Powerometer” was displayed in the school lobby to show whether meter readings were going up or down.

Perhaps more important than reducing energy consumption by nearly 18 percent, the kids learned about the impact their behavior has on the environment. Emily Fano, co-chair of PS 166′s Green Committee and the school’s Green Cup Challenge coordinator, said she received numerous emails from fellow parents who said their children were now turning off lights at home. Imagine if the 1,600 public schools in New York City took the Green Cup Challenge and reduced their energy consumption by nearly 20 percent. Think of the numbers of trees we would be planting or cars we would be removing from the road.

We hope educators and parents will be inspired by PS 166′s example and take the simple steps listed above to reduce their energy consumption. But relying on people’s altruism is not quite the same as instituting a policy that will guarantee success. We discovered that the Department of Citywide Administrative Services pays the utility bills for the New York City public schools. We’d like to propose a policy whereby the money a school saves on its electric bills is given to the school. Such a policy would not only give schools a huge incentive to reduce their energy consumption, it would also give our city schools money they need at a time of severe budget cuts. Opportunities to raise money for our schools that do not cost our government anything which also help to fight global warming are few and far between. The mayor should seize this idea and make it happen.

Cohen’s 7-year old daughter stood staring at a diorama of a life-size polar bear standing on a melted island covered with trash. Then she turned around and announced that she would no longer buy school lunch in order “to save the polar bears.” And that’s how Debby Lee Cohen discovered that in New York City school lunches are served on Styrofoam trays.

We interviewed Debby Lee, a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design, to find out the health and environmental hazards of using Styrofoam and what parents and educators can do to get rid of the Styrofoam trays at their schools.

Why are you so determined to get rid of the Styrofoam trays in our schools?

Styrofoam (polystyrene) trays are the worst kept secret in NYC schools. NYC schools use 850,000 trays per day, which amounts to 153 million trays a year! They are terrible for our children’s health and for the environment. Some children eat three meals a day directly off of these trays, which are made up of the chemicals benzene and styrene. Styrene, a possible carcinogen, leaches into hot foods and has been linked to central nervous system disorders such as headaches, fatigue, depression, and hearing loss. New York State passed legislation banning toxic cleaning products in all schools. Parents should demand toxic-free school lunches as well. We should not be taking risks with our children’s health.

If that’s not bad enough, polystyrene is a petroleum-based product which stays around for centuries, if not longer, taking up an enormous amount of landfill space. Solid waste adds a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Why then are we still using Styrofoam?

Styrofoam is cheap, extremely lightweight, and insulates well. In fact, the price per tray just came down from 4 cents to 3 cents! Most of the available alternatives, such as biodegradable sugarcane trays, cost much more. And although prices of alternative disposables are slowly coming down due to increased demand, the prices are not coming down fast enough to make the change that is needed.

How did you make the transition from an informed, angry mom to an activist?

A few weeks after I discovered our children were eating off of Styrofoam trays, I had the opportunity with my Parsons 3-D students to create am installation out of used Styrofoam trays. I was in school cafeterias pulling out hundreds of dirty trays from the trash and realized that a significant number were barely used. My initial thought was — why don’t we have a “don’t need, don’t take” policy in place. This would not only reduce the number of trays thrown out but would save the city money. For example, a student who only buys a sandwich and a drink doesn’t really need a tray.

I started making phone calls everyday, looking for some organization that was dealing with the tray issue. Although I found some amazing individuals, like parent Helen Greenberg, who were working hard to make change within their own school, there was no group working on trays as a citywide issue. I wondered if parents of children receiving free and subsidized school lunch had a clue about the harmful effects of Styrofoam trays.

I was already in discussion with another parent and web designer, Robin Perl, about creating a website about climate change. We saw the tray issue as a solvable problem.  Robin designed an effective site and gathered quotes from doctors at Mt. Sinai Medical Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which gave us credibility. We sent out emails and petitions to everyone we knew and our organization, Styrofoam Out of Schools (SOS), was formed.

You’ve succeeded in bringing Trayless Tuesday to our schools. Can you describe what Trayless Tuesday is and how you made it happen?

Robin Perl and I, along with fellow Parsons teacher and product designer, Jessica Corr, and parent Helen Greenberg, asked for a meeting with the Department of Education’s Eric Goldstein and other SchoolFood directors. We agreed in the meeting to find ways of reducing tray use with Jessica’s Parsons class working in a school cafeteria. Out of this class, the idea of Trayless Tuesday, a trend that was already taking place on college campuses, was born. The Department of Education agreed to try it out and as of March 2010 all city schools participate in Trayless Tuesday, which reduces the use of Styrofoam trays by 20 percent, or 850,00 trays per week.

Right now Parsons students are designing posters to support Trayless Tuesday and to improve cafeteria recycling. Unfortunately, these posters will not arrive in schools until the fall. In the meantime, we need parents and administrators to explain to staff and students what Trayless Tuesday is all about and why it’s such an important movement for our schools.

How are you working to get rid of Styrofoam trays the other four days of the week?

The first step is to use recyclable paper products on pizza days and all other days and meals that do not have a saucy component. SchoolFood is already purchasing paper boats (what looks like a paper hot dog tray but larger), which it will substitute for the Styrofoam trays for all breakfast meals and soon on pizza days as well. SchoolFood director Stephen O’Brien is dedicated to making this change happen.

With the support of SchoolFood, our legislators, and the mayor’s office, we need to begin piloting alternative trays and systems in order to find solutions which do not threaten our children’s health while also significantly reducing our carbon emissions. This will take true collaboration involving many parties. We need to bring manufacturers, cafeteria and custodial unions, the recycling mill managers, legislators, and the city’s health, education, and santation departments together to formulate a viable long-term plan.

It is also time to make the elimination of Styrofoam a national movement. By increasing demand for alternative products, we can bring the price down on a national level. NYC should partner with other large East Coast cities and counties to increase buying power.

Schools can substitute their Styrofoam trays for biodegradable sugar-cane trays or reusable, washable trays if they have a dishwasher. How many schools are no longer using Styrofoam trays? What should a parent do if they want to get rid of the Styrofoam trays at their school?

I would first encourage parents to attend their school’s Wellness Committee meeting and ask that the paper boats be used instead of Styrofoam whenever possible. If your school does not have a Wellness Committee, NYC Green Schools has information about how to get one started. The city also has guidelines for establishing a Wellness Committee at your school.

Reusable trays would be great. Currently, however, there are only 30 public schools in the city that still have dishwashers and some schools do not even have the plumbing to support a dishwasher.

Twelve schools are presently self-funding the extra cost to purchase biodegradable sugarcane trays. I strongly encourage schools that can raise the money to make the change to sugarcane trays in order to keep their children from eating off of Styrofoam. Presently, however, there is no free composting facility or pick-up available (something we should all be advocating for), so these trays go directly into sealed landfills where they do not biodegrade for a very long time.

Our website explains the steps a parent can take to get rid of Styrofoam in their school.

Is there anything else you’d like people to know?

SOS is planning on setting up pilots for a variety of alternative possibilities, including composting for all the schools that use the sugar-cane trays, providing energy-efficient or solar-powered dishwashers for reusable trays, employing personal reusable trays and cutlery, and piloting new disposable prototypes as well as system changes that suit the needs of NYC and other large urban school districts. We need volunteers, partnerships with universities and manufacturers, and funding to get these initiatives going as soon as possible! For anyone interested in joining us, we can be contacted at info@sosnyc.org

As parents and educators, we have the responsibility to teach our children to be responsible citizens (which includes reducing waste) and to provide them with school facilities and services that they will not be paying for as adults! NYC has an enormous amount of work to do in terms of reducing our waste. We should teach and empower our children by setting the best example in our schools.

Right now, Congress is considering the Child Nutrition Act, which is renewed every five years and sets the rules and funding levels for federal nutrition programs, including school lunch and breakfast programs. President Obama, who has set the goal of ending child hunger by 2015, is calling for $1 billion a year in funding for the act over the next 10 years.

That sounds like a lot — but according to Joel Burger, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, it will take $4 billion a year to get healthy, nutritious meals to the 13 million children in the United States living in the more than one in 10 households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. And unfortunately, the bill that emerged from the Senate Agricultural Committee allocated just $450 million a year to the cause, not even half of what President Obama recommended.

As the House of Representatives drafts its bill, which is expected to be released later this month, we are urging all New Yorkers to sign the City Council’s online petition urging Congress to support President Obama’s call for $1 billion a year in funding. Although it’s not the $4 billion a year NYC Green Schools and groups that fight child hunger support, $1 billion a year would help cover a much-needed increase in reimbursements for healthier meals. That amount would also make it easier for children and families to enroll in meal programs and assist programs that bring food straight from farms into schools.

One in four children in New York City live in poverty, defined as an annual income below $16,600 for a family of three. We all need to rally behind this initiative of Speaker Christine Quinn and the City Council to make sure these children have access to healthy school meals, because in many cases the school breakfast and lunch that they eat are their only meals for the day.

So where is the money to fund the Child Nutrition Act supposed to come from? In our opinion, if the federal government can come up with $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, it can certainly find $4 billion a year to serve our nation’s hungry, undernourished children the healthy meals they need. But here’s a more specific recommendation: In its 2011 budget proposal, the Obama administration proposes limiting farm subsidies to “wealthy farmers” and cutting back government support for crop-insurance companies. Together, these changes would save more than $10 billion over the next 10 years — enough to support the $1 billion a year Obama has recommended to feed hungry children.

Congress needs to make feeding healthy, nutritious meals to our country’s hungry children a top priority. By signing the City Council’s petition, we can let Congress know that it’s what we want out tax dollars to support.

That’s not surprising, knowing what’s available in vending machines in New York City schools:

• Brown-Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts: 200 calories, calories from Fat 60, 12 grams of sugar, ingredients include polydextrose, dextrose, high-fructose corn syrup, and corn syrup solids.
• Cheerios Cereal Bar Strawberry: 150 calories, calories from fat 30, 10 grams of sugar, ingredients include fructose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, gelatin, Red 40, maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavor.
• Doritos Cool Ranch Reduced Fat: 130 calories, calories from fat 45, ingredients include corn syrup solids, monosodium glutamate, dextrose, artificial color including Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 5, and natural and artificial flavors.
• Doritos Spicy Nachos: 140 calories, calories from Fat 50, ingredients include monosodium glutamate, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, dextrose, artificial coloring including Yellow 6 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40, Blue 1, natural and artificial flavor.
• Linden’s Butter Crunchers Cookies: 150 calories, calories from Fat 51, 10.75 grams of sugar, ingredients include corn syrup and maltodextrin.

As we have argued, it’s not the occasional sweet at a school bake sale that is causing childhood obesity, it’s the food our children are consuming every day. When today’s parents went to middle school and high school, there were bake sales, but there were no vending machines making Doritos, Linden’s cookies, and Pop-Tarts available to our children every day. And despite the city Department of Education’s attempts to improve the “nutritional value” of these processed foods so that no single serving contains more than 200 calories or 10 percent saturated fat, make no mistake that it is still junk food filled with empty calories that our children don’t need.

So why, in the midst of a health crisis that many are calling an epidemic, hasn’t Mayor Bloomberg, who eliminated trans fats from city restaurants and has turned his sights to excessive salt consumption, removed the junk food from our schools? One possible explanation is the $28 million the city’s schools are projected to make over the next five years from the vending machines. The sad truth is that the Department of Education and the food companies providing the junk food are making a lot of money by making our children fat. But the report from Mission: Readiness has an answer for this as well: “Research shows that reducing high-calorie, low-nutrition foods and beverages … does not hurt a school’s bottom line. The sales of school lunches increase when junk food and sugary beverages are limited.”

That’s promising news, but whether the Department of Education would make up the loss revenue with increased sales of school lunches is irrelevant. Schools should not be making money at the expense of our children’s health. And yet the junk food continues to be sold out of greed, apathy, or some combination of both. If the distressing statistics regarding the state of our children’s health aren’t enough to persuade Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to remove the junk food from our schools, maybe this quote from the Mission: Readiness report will: “The United States military stands ready to protect the American people, but if our nation does not help ensure that future generations grow up to be healthy and fit, that will become increasingly difficult. The health of our children and our national security are at risk. America must act decisively.” Let’s hope that now our elected officials will do just that.

Here’s what Elam had to say about the benefits of going meatless, how schools are making the change, and why it would be a big deal if New York City signed on.

EP & AR: When did Meatless Monday start, and what is its mission? 

CE: Meatless Monday, an initiative of the The Monday Campaigns, launched in 2003 in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Our mission is simple: to reduce saturated fat intake worldwide by encouraging people to cut meat one day a week. As a nonprofit public health initiative, we are dedicated to bringing Meatless Monday to homes, schools, campuses, offices and communities at large.

Why meatless? 

A broad range of studies suggests that excessive meat consumption may result in higher risks of the four primary chronic preventable diseases killing Americans today: heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.

Why Monday? 

It’s the start of the week. Research shows that Monday is the very best time for people to start and sustain behavior change.

 Indeed, if this Monday passes you by, there’s always another one around the corner — allowing you to wipe the slate clean, and recommit to healthy behaviors. Plus, “Meatless Monday” just sounds right.

Tell us about the Baltimore City Public School System and how Meatless Monday got started there. 

Eighty-five thousand schoolkids in Baltimore now start each week with healthy, fresh, plant-based lunches — for some of these kids, sadly, it’s one of the few nutritious meals they receive all week. The Meatless Monday campaign works closely with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, located in Baltimore, and they were instrumental in outlining the health and environmental benefits — nudging the Baltimore school system to embrace Meatless Monday in September 2009. In addition, Baltimore has a very forward-thinking food services director, Tony Geraci, who spearheaded the implementation, along with a push for more local produce in school cafeterias and more school gardens. It’s been a rousing success so far!

Are you working with other public school systems in the U.S.? 

Currently there are four schools in the East Village (of Manhattan) that have proudly implemented Meatless Monday. We are also working on a pilot program in Chatham, N.J. There are eight schools in Covington County, Ky., that go meatless on Monday. And with the recent announcement that the city of San Francisco has adopted Meatless Monday, we are targeting other West Coast cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland, reaching out to their city officials and school boards and encouraging them to join the movement.

What are your plans for the New York City public system? Are you speaking with anyone at the DOE Office of School Food about implementing Meatless Monday in our city’s schools?

Now with the active support of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, we are speaking with Stephen O’Brien, a director of SchoolFood, this week. Our plan is to show how easy, fun and healthy it is to bring Meatless Monday to all schools in New York City. Indeed, we are working with the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food to market school lunch recipes that they’ve developed — recipes that are plant-based while utilizing the federal government food allotment — to the city and to the rest of the country.

What would be the impact of the New York City Public School System going meatless on Monday? 

The impact would be profound. For one, it would show the rest of the country that New York City can take a leadership role in kids health. Secondly, it would get kids thinking, it would get teachers developing new curricula, and most importantly, it would get parents reflecting on and hopefully improving the quality of the food their children eat. In the short term, it would provide nutritious and tasty lunches to our city’s youth at a time when the specter of childhood obesity looms ever larger.

Who’s joined Meatless Monday so far?

The coalition of civic leaders, food celebrities and taste makers is broad. Former Vice President Al Gore, food writer Michael Pollan, Sir Paul McCartney, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, chef Mollie Katzen, chef Katie Lee, actress Gwenyth Paltrow, and actor Simon Cowell – these names touch on our range of support. Internationally, Meatless Monday programs have popped up in Britain, Brazil, Taiwan, Austalia, Canada, Holland, and Finland. Here in this country, about 30 college campuses go meatless on Monday. Nearly 100 blogs do weekly Meatless Monday features, including the biggest one of all: Huffington Post. And Compass Group, the world’s largest food services company, says encourages diners to go meatless once a week in 8,500 U.S. corporate and academic cafeterias. The Meatless Monday movement continues to grow — and we hope to enlist New York City to further spark the engine.

Finally, what do you hope to achieve with Meatless Monday?

It’s all about raising consciousness. Helping inspire positive change, one small step at a time. My colleague, Tami O’Neill, wrote this recently, and I think it’s apt:

Is there anything more American than the chicken nugget? Quick, cheap, portable and deep fried, these golden morsels have become more synonymous with our culture than apple pie. More than a telling indication of our nation’s priorities, processed meats like hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets have become a way of life for many of us. Americans consume, on average, over 200 pounds of meat each year — fully 45% more than the USDA recommends.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have an option. We can gradually improve the quality of the food we eat, the fuel we put in our tank. Our hope is that we can achieve this together, by making more space on the plate for vegetables, one Monday at a time!

We were there to promote our Meatless Monday campaign, because, as we wrote last week, animal production for food consumption contributes more to global climate change than all forms of transportation combined.

Here’s a glimpse at what other people are doing to make our schools more sustainable:

SOSnyc.org is responsible for bringing Trayless Tuesdays to all of the city’s public schools earlier this year. Find out how to eliminate Styrofoam trays from your school during the rest of the week.

Wellness in the Schools promotes children’s environmental health and nutrition by introducing green cleaning programs and advocating for healthier school lunches.

Green Living Technologies, an approved Department of Education vendor, is bringing gardens into the classrooms with green roofs, walls, and vertical agriculture. The company is a partner for a new sustainability-themed high school scheduled to open in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx next year.

Seeds in the Middle, a group that began at PS 91 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, inspires parents, educators, and students to green their environment and take control of their health.

Teachers College of Columbia University has developed a science and nutrition program for grades 4-8. Find out how to bring this program to your school.

The Green Gremlins of Grace Church School, a private school in Greenwich Village,  are spreading the word about reducing energy waste. 

Sales of these reusable, recyclable binders go to the charity Getting Tools to City Schools, which provides free school supplies to low-income public schools in the city.

How is your school or your community going green? Add to our list in the comments below.

We found this troubling because animal products like meat and cheese are the main source of the saturated fats that raise cholesterol levels and thereby increase the risk of heart disease. We also knew that animal production for food consumption contributes more to global climate change than all forms of transportation combined. With half of children already showing fatty streaks in their arteries, what we saw was a menu that was making our children and planet sick.

Fortunately, our schools — The Children’s Workshop School, The East Village Community School and PS 94, which share a building and a cafeteria — already had a wellness committee, and we joined. The committee brought its concern about the preponderance of meat and cheese dishes to Shawn Chambers, the Department of Education SchoolFood manager responsible for our building, and asked if we could jettison meat from the menu on Mondays. To our delight, he said yes. After we got permission from our principals, our schools in October became the first in New York City to have Meatless Mondays.

Since October, we’ve tried to expand the repertoire of meals offered on Meatless Mondays — we even had a taste test to find out which plant-based meals our students prefer. This month our Meatless Mondays feature vegetarian chili with rice, black bean burritos, African gumbo, and veggie burgers with a side of beans.  All these meals are cooked with fresh ingredients in our school kitchen. We are tremendously thankful to Shawn Chambers, our SchoolFood Manager; Marianny Abreu, our kitchen supervisor; and the dedicated cooks in our kitchen. Without them, and without our building’s working school kitchen (something of a rarity in in the city), Meatless Mondays would not be possible.

The Baltimore (Md.) City Public Schools, which serves 80,000 students a day, already participates in Meatless Mondays, joining an international movement of individuals, organizations and cities making the commitment to lower meat consumption and enjoy a plant-based diet on Monday. Our desire is to see New York City become the next public school system to join this campaign, so that all the city’s children can enjoy the health benefits of eating plant-based meals and avoid the health and environmental consequences associated with eating too much meat and cheese.

Soon, we’ll provide information for parents about how to start Meatless Mondays at their schools. In the meantime, parents can read about how to form a wellness committees and make other changes to improve their schools’ food. Next, we’ll feature an interview with Chris Elam, the director of the nonprofit Meatless Monday, which is working with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University (named after Mayor Bloomberg, a major donor) to reduce meat consumption in America by 15 percent.

If a student chooses a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich with chocolate milk for lunch (an option that is offered every day in our schools), he’ll essentially be eating corn syrup disguised as a meal. That’s because the wheat bread and buns served in our schools contain high-fructose corn syrup; the second ingredient in the peanut butter is dextrose (another form of corn syrup); the first ingredient in the jelly is corn syrup, not what you might expect, fruit; and the second ingredient in the chocolate milk is high-fructose corn syrup.

By some estimates, corn syrup makes up as much as 20 percent of children’s daily calories, and its consumption contributes to childhood obesity and diabetes rates. Plus, the production of corn syrup is devastating to the environment. This is all especially tragic because bread, peanut butter, and milk do not need to be sweetened. These hidden sugars in foods that don’t need them are silent contributors to the health crisis we see. It’s time for Mayor Bloomberg to take the lead again on public health issues and replace these foods containing corn syrup in our schools with healthier options that do not.

If the city’s Department of Education genuinely wants to address what some health experts are describing as an epidemic, it needs to act quickly to improve the quality of the food that is offered every day to children in our public schools. The city also needs to make sure our children are getting the physical exercise they need and that New York State Law requires.

As parents on the Wellness Committee at our schools, we have suggestions for how the DOE can combat childhood obesity — without banning homemade baked goods from school fundraisers.

• Remove the vending machines from our middle and high schools. These machines sell highly-processed foods such as Doritos, Frito Lays chips, and Pop-Tarts. Marketing these foods and making them available every day to our children is not only filling our children with empty calories they don’t need, it’s also developing in them a lifetime of bad eating habits.
• Replace the foods containing corn syrup in our school cafeterias with healthier options that do not. More on this in our next post.
• Stop serving chocolate milk in our schools. Instead, provide every school cafeteria with a water jet machine, so that children have the option of drinking water with their lunch and breakfast.
• Follow Baltimore’s example and implement Meatless Mondays in all public schools. In addition, all schools should offer a plant-based meal option every day. Half of children 2-15 years of age have fatty streaks in their arteries, the beginnings of heart disease, and animal products are a major source of the cholesterol and saturated fats causing these deposits. Our children should be eating less meat and more beans, grains, vegetables, and fruits for lunch. 
• As proposed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the DOE should create a mandatory K-12 nutrition curriculum so that children can become educated about the food they eat, where it comes from, and its impact on the environment and their health.
• Bring yoga into the schools. Many city schools don’t have gyms or even playgrounds. Yoga requires only requires a mat and can be done in the classroom if a school has no gym. It’s an inexpensive way for the city to ensure our children are getting the physical exercise they need.

For parents who don’t want to wait around for the DOE to implement these changes, we will soon address what parents can do at their schools to begin making some of the changes we suggest, so that together we can be part of the solution to this public health crisis.

Officials at the Department of Education consistently fail to engage parents on policy involving their children, and in this instance they have experienced a serious backlash. Parents don’t want the city mandating what to buy and feed their children if they want to raise money for their underfunded schools. Many administrators and teachers aren’t happy about the regulation, but the regulation (included at the end of this post) states that “failure to follow this regulation … may result in adverse impact on the principal’s compliance performance rating.” They’re scared to speak out. Parents, administrators and teachers are being held hostage by a policy they don’t want, and the Department of Education still believes it’s doing the right thing.

We believe we have shown broad opposition to the regulation, with our robust event, coverage by national media, and an online petition with more than 1,500 signatures. But why should it be the responsibility of mothers, juggling careers and families, to demonstrate broad opposition? When opposition is so clear and strong, should it not be the responsibility of DOE officials to hold a public forum where they can hear from parents and students directly?

With the assistance of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, parents have every intention of building up a broad coalition of parents, community boards and City Council members to get the ban on the sale of home-cooked food in our schools repealed. Community Board 2 in Manhattan has already passed a resolution urging the chancellor to repeal the ban. Council Member Gale Brewer will be reintroducing a similar resolution at the Council’s meeting this Thursday, March 25.  The bake-in rally was just the beginning of a long, coordinated grassroots movement to get the ban repealed and to bring democracy back to our schools.

UPDATE: This post originally mischaracterized discussions between the DOE and the public advocate’s office about scheduling a meeting between the city and rally organizers. As we originally reported, the DOE requested an in-person meeting with rally organizers, ourselves included, and representatives of the public advocate’s office on the morning of the rally to discuss possible changes to the regulation. But we did not agree to attend, because we did not feel that we could speak on behalf of all parents involved in this grassroots movement. The public advocate’s office asked to meet with us after the rally to discuss ways to create effective dialogue with the DOE.